Ronald Johnson was a Kansas native who lived most of his adult life in San Francisco. He told Contemporary Authors: "I have spent the last twenty years writing a long poem titled ARK, which was completed in 1991. The work consists of three books, each of thirty-three sections: titled The Foundations,The Spires, and The Ramparts. Rather than being based on literary sources (as the early The Book of the Green Man was based on . . .